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Picturing Pakistan's Past: The Beatles, Booze And Bikinis

pakistan chose the easy way, it allied itself to a superpower which allowed short term propsperity and relatively better living standard in south asia. india, under nehruvian socialism suffered much more but indian people had a special hatred for western powers and wanted to stand on our own feet.
 
pakistan chose the easy way, it allied itself to a superpower which allowed short term propsperity and relatively better living standard in south asia. india, under nehruvian socialism suffered much more but indian people had a special hatred for western powers and wanted to stand on our own feet.


Oh Bhai Sahib,

You are "chosen" to be allied to the super power. Then it is upto you to decide how far you want to go in the relationship.

Nehruvian socialism was never good for India.

Indian companies and Indian economy became moribund due to his bad bad approach.

Once Nehruvian socialism was thrown in the gutter, India started prospering in few years.

So please do not try yet another one-upmanship as an Indian. Be educated instead of repeating 3rd grade sarkari school books.

Thank you
 
pakistan chose the easy way, it allied itself to a superpower which allowed short term propsperity and relatively better living standard in south asia. india, under nehruvian socialism suffered much more but indian people had a special hatred for western powers and wanted to stand on our own feet.

India allied with another super-power, Soviet Russia, so that's your theory done.

The truth is more prosaic, and more complex (but not complicated). There are many reasons for our relative progress compared to Pakistan.

One is that India had a stronger polity with better political leaders that - on an average- kept coming with decisions that progressively moved India forward. There were always other forces - opposition leaders, judiciary, Press, Election Commission etc- to prevent one group from taking 'extreme' decisions.

Pakistan not only had political leaders of a lower calibre (Jinnah and a few others excluded), their system largely threw up individual leaders who moved the country as they liked, especially those from the army, without anyone to restrain them. I know many Pakistanis revere Zia, but IMVHO, if there had been greater checks and balances on that man, half the problems Pakistan faces today would not exist.
 
Pakistan today is a conservative, Islamic country, but it was a far different place in its younger days.

In the 1960s and '70s, Pakistan's elite, many of them educated in the West, could publicly indulge in more liberal acts, including drinking alcohol. Pakistan was also part of the "hippie trail," from Turkey to India, which young Westerners traveled.

Once a major stop on the backpacking route, Western tourists don't exist in the Peshawar that I have come to know through my visits to family in the northwest corner of Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan.

If my parents saw "hippies" around hashish shops on their city's streets, they never mentioned them to me. The only Western women I've come by in Peshawar are in ads for talcum powder or maxi pads — their bodies often draped in an ominous shroud of black paint. Turns out this experience is common among millennials in Pakistan.

"Most of the stories about a more open and liberal Pakistan have come down to the young, post-'80s generations of Pakistan from their parents as oral anecdotes," Nadeem F. Paracha tells me in an e-mail. "But since most young Pakistanis have only known a more troubled and repressed Pakistan, they were incapable of picturing it."

Paracha, a columnist for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, spent two years scouring newspaper libraries and the personal photo collections of family, friends and acquaintances for images that reveal a more open society. The pictures he found make Pakistan's past seem like a completely foreign place.

What caused this great divide? Paracha offers one explanation: "We as a people and state began to crumble inwards."

According to Paracha, beginning in the 1970s, a deep suspicion of foreign powers and minority faiths began to set in that gave way to a more subtle, Islamic version of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution.

From the images Paracha collected, it's clear that a lot has changed for Pakistanis in the past few decades.

In a four-part Web series called Also Pakistan, Paracha includes a newspaper clipping that describes how The Beatles' Paul McCartney was engulfed in a frenzy of fans at an airport bar in Karachi.

In today's Pakistan, alcohol is officially banned except by permit for non-Muslims, and it's hard to imagine that any global music sensation would pass through the country if he could avoid it.

While the pendulum might not swing back anytime soon, Paracha says presenting these photos has sparked optimism among young Pakistanis.

"It has given them a sense of pride, and more so, hope," he tells me, "that if Pakistan had deep roots in things like religious extremism, military rule and corruption, there was still an important part of the country's history that radiated a more confident, progressive, tolerant and joyous Pakistan."

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Western tourists smoke hashish on the roof of a hotel in Peshawar in 1972. Pakistan was an important destination along the "hippie trail," a popular route for Western backpackers that ran across Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, usually ending in Nepal.

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Then-first lady Jacqueline Kennedy visited Pakistan in 1962. Here she is seen riding in a convertible with the then-ruler of Pakistan, Ayub Khan, through throngs of people in Karachi

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Rakhshanda Khattak, shown here in 1972, was one of Pakistan's leading fashion models in the 1970s, before quitting and leaving the country in 1979.

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A 1963 clipping from Pakistan's Morning News describes how Pakistani pop fans gate-crashed their way into a bar at the Karachi Airport where The Beatles were having a drink. The band had arrived in Karachi en route to Hong Kong.


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The 1975 film Dulhan Aik Raat Ki (A Bride for One Night) was "for adults only." Such racy features were popular among middle-class Pakistanis in the early 1970s.

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A German tourist stands outside a hashish shop in 1976. Shops selling hashish sprang up in northwestern Pakistan when young Western tourists began to pour in from Afghanistan in the late 1960s.

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The women on the cover of the May 1972 issue of Pakistan's The Herald look like they could be in Miami or Athens. The magazine initially focused on the changing fashion and social trends of urban Pakistani youth.

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Pakistani cricket batsman Sadiq Muhammad (left) and former Pakistani cricket captain Mushtaq Muhammad share a beer in Sydney in 1977. Later that year, alcohol would become illegal for Muslims in Pakistan.


Picturing Pakistan's Past: The Beatles, Booze And Bikinis : The Picture Show : NPR

I'm surprised you would post such a thing.

All these things are against Islam, and you want to post this garbage.

Allah ka shukr that Pakistan is a conservative and Islamic country. We are Muslims are we need to practice our beliefs.

Alcohol is a fitna, a handiwork of the devil. Alcohol is a cursed thing. Why would you want to promote something that is antithetical to our beliefs.

Another thing women in bikinis? I mean why would you want our Muslim women to go naked.

Nadeen Paracha is a cursed traitor. lol, don't worry when a true Islamic government comes in, he will be the first to be kicked from his job.
 
pakistan chose the easy way, it allied itself to a superpower which allowed short term propsperity and relatively better living standard in south asia. india, under nehruvian socialism suffered much more but indian people had a special hatred for western powers and wanted to stand on our own feet.

The basic difference between India and Pakistan is that Indian society, especially the elite, always had a sense of purpose and manifest destiny. Regardless of the strategy chosen, whether Nehruvian or capitalist, or superpower alliances, there was a belief that India, by herself, could and would attain greatness. That sense of manifest destiny is obvious now, but it was always a part of the Indian elite psyche.

Barring a few exceptional individuals, Pakistani society and elite never had that sense, and still don't. It's an aimless drift guided by short term personal goals and marriages of convenience. Even now, Pakistanis console themselves that Pakistan can never measure up to India, let alone attain global status, when the reality is that tiny countries like Germany and Japan have shown the world that size doesn't matter.
 
Off topic, but those pakistanis who find it frustrating to debate with Zarvan because he uses religious and mythical references as per convenience and uses circular logic, spare a thought for us Indians who have to contend with the same stuff from a large no of pakistanis posters right from two nation theory to IVC daily.

When one uses ideology (includes religion) and mythical claims in debates, then nobody learns anything new, because a person representing an ideology does not have the intellectual privilege of learning anything new.

at topic - there is not much difference between pakistan and india even today. The only real dangerous sign is see is the no of pakistani young who are more concerned about politics, religion and conspiracy theories and palestine than their own personal excellence and progress. That can potemtially be a real differentiator.

When about 10 years ago one of my schoolmates sent an email on our school group id about politics / religion, the most successful student immediately replied - forget all this and concentrate on your career. Since not one such email we have recd. The best possible advice one can get.
 
pakistan chose the easy way, it allied itself to a superpower which allowed short term propsperity and relatively better living standard in south asia. india, under nehruvian socialism suffered much more but indian people had a special hatred for western powers and wanted to stand on our own feet.

ya and the hate became so IMMESNE that india signed a nuclear deal with a "western super power" called USA??? :disagree:
 
Oh bhai sahib,

Those things are already part of the code in many Western countries including USA.

In fact US constitution guarantees much more than what you are suggesting. In reality Islamic teachings fail when it comes to treating non-Muslims and other minorities as equals and thus free from discrimination/persecution by individual vigilantes and even by the state.

Please study it first before commenting on things you may not understand fully.

Please do not confuse between

1- Laws and legislation
2. Moral code
3. Habits and prevailing practices of people in an area


They all impact each other, but they should not be confused between each other.


When you say "love thy neghibour more than you love your brother."

This is moral code. You cannot make law or put a Mullah or Ayatullah in charge of making sure that you do love your neighbor.

This cannot be a law. Get it?

However you can perhaps a law that says if you steal your neighbor's property (or anyone's property), your @rse will be thrown in jail for x number of days.


So I urge you and other Pakistanis. do not be get so romantic about things 1400+ years ago that you become totally ignorant about things in 2012.

Thank you.


I beg to differ if islam didbn't preach protection of non muslims it wouldn't have had so many non muslims under their rule in IndiaAndalus spain,Jerusalam(salahudin), india under moghuls & the ottoman empire.


as for "LAWS" to safegaurd thy neghibour. well islam has just that type of law it says the following:

LOVE THY NEGHIBOUR PROTECT HIS PROPERTY OR GET YOUR HAND AMPUTATED FOR STEALING.


that is a clear & precise law my friend. PLEASE LEARN THE TRUE ESSENCE OF ISLAM not the one taught to you by the current mullah crop in PAKISTAN!
 
I beg to differ if islam didbn't preach protection of non muslims it wouldn't have had so many non muslims under their rule in IndiaAndalus spain,Jerusalam(salahudin), india under moghuls & the ottoman empire.!

I can see that you are not schooled in legal terms. So that's why you are confusing things along several fronts.

Preaching "protection" of non Muslims is not the same as "treating them equally" like any other citizen.

Again you are confusing these concepts big time.

Please study this topic a bit more and then come back for discussion.


Thank you
 
It was the hang over of British colonial rule and were limited to the urban elites. But as more people started to get educated and had more say in the social and urban affairs Pakistan started to shape itself. There is nothing to ponder about 60/70s. Lets try to be what you are.

The first thing Mujib did after 71, banned horse racing and banned alcohol still being a secular and leftist government. That is what we are and we are happy with it.

I did not see.. but my senior said that they had bars in every ministers house in 70's (he was nephew of a Mujib minister) which were the tradition of british era. Its unimaginable today..
 
well a religion is from god and you can't change it or modify it or make it up. unless ofcourse it is a human made opinon. which can be changed

So as per you every Christian should deny the theory that earth revolves around sun because its against Bible
And Muslims should believe that earth is flat/humans just appeared on earth and no evolution occured

If you want to catch up with the modern world then your beliefs, social structure have to evolve
Not every thing written in religious texts is true or applicable in current world
Its your choice to live in the present or go back to 7th century
 
What was better? This or that? At least they weren't blowing up fellow citizens.

Give everyone the choice to do what they want. We like to impose things being the champions we are. If we believe in the superiority of Islam then we shouldn't even have to impose it... sad. Let the clubs, bars, strip-clubs whatever be. Let the morally corrupt do whatever the hell they please.
 
What was better? This or that? At least they weren't blowing up fellow citizens.

Give everyone the choice to do what they want. We like to impose things being the champions we are. If we believe in the superiority of Islam then we shouldn't even have to impose it... sad. Let the clubs, bars, strip-clubs whatever be. Let the morally corrupt do whatever the hell they please.

Nobody appreciates that extreme but this one is even more disgusting than that , one must ask himself was it worst than killing and terrorizing our own brethren - not to mention the intolerance to the difference in opinion in our times ?

Let the faith of a human be judged by God himself , not any mortal ( or like in our country - the Mullah who is considered the " God's viceroy " on earth who just cant simply be wrong ) ... Simply , if a person finds peace - he will follow the religion regardless of the laws of the country and the imposition of it ... What benefit lies there in shoving your interpretation of the religion down other's throat ?
 
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